★★½
“Pop-up on the infield.”
And if the above phrase doesn’t make any sense – it’s basically an underwhelming outcome during a baseball game – then you are probably not the target audience for this sporting drama. After almost a quarter-century living in America (much of it spent running a site about the local team as a sideline!), I’m fairly well-versed in baseball’s intricacies. But in contrast to some of the other Korean movies in this genre, such as Run Off or As One, you really need to know the sport going in to understand this on more than the surface level. Do not expect the film to explain what a knuckleball is, or the importance of spin rates.
The central character is Joo Soo-in (Lee J-y), a high school student who has dreams of becoming a professional baseball player. The main problem there is, she’s a teenage girl, and no woman has ever played professionally in Korea. While she pitches well enough – for a girl – she doesn’t throw with enough velocity to catch the eye of scouts. It doesn’t help that nobody really believes in her dream, with just about everyone trying to dissuade her. Even when she does get an offer from a professional team, it turns out to be to front their women’s outfit. Not least among Soo-in’s critics is her own mother (Yeom), already dealing with a feckless husband, who just wants her daughter to get real and start working in the same factory she does.
There are basically few surprises to be found here at all, with everything unfolding more or less as you would expect. It feels as if the script started off with a single word – “empowering” – and everything was developed from that point outward. For example, you will likely not be shocked to discover that mom is eventually won over to her daughter’s cause. Though I was amused by the scene where she’s told by the pro team the deposit on her daughter’s services is $60,000. Her response is, “I can’t give you that much money right now,” unaware the team is the one paying! Otherwise, it often plays like an All-Star Game of sports cliches, such as the gruff coach, romantic interest, etc.
I will say, the baseball stuff is well done: the actress seems to know her way around a pitching mound, and her mechanics look sound. [I wonder if CGI was used for the baseball, or if she really was throwing at 80+ mph?] It’s interesting that we never actually see Soo-in play in an actual game. Instead, it’s all training sessions and try-outs, as she tries to learn a new pitch, which relies less on velocity. As a fan of the game, I probably got a bit more out of this than most viewers, and was still never more than moderately engaged. When the outcome of any sporting contest is obvious, there’s not a lot of point, and much the same goes for sporting movies like this.
Dir: Choi Yoon-tae
Star: Lee Joo-young, Lee Joon-hyuk, Yeom Hye-ran, Song Young-kyu